In the early days, there was a lot fewer options for discussing things online. Kuro5hin started pretty close to the same time as/., and was one of the places where if something happened, you would hear about it. There was a personal journal section(which/. ended up implementing), and a 'front page' and 'sections' that were specific to topics - it was unlike slashdot in that it was democratic -- people would vote on new postings for either front page or section or to dump it, and so, like many websites today, but unlike any really before it, it would be populated with what the people on the website generally wanted to see. It ranged from one of the very first posts announcing wikipedia as a potential project by Larry Sanger, to 'mindless link propagation' of the form of a single link to a website with no commentary really that would be recognizable to, say, a reddit user. Likewise comments were moderated by the commentors, closer to reddit(only with more points involved) than slashdot(which you had to win a lottery of sorts to have the right to moderate comments).

Kuro5hin helped slashdot become what it was, and was a stepping stone towards the internet having its own culture -- slashdot helped reddit, digg exist by means of example, and if you listen closely enough on 4chan and its many offspring subcultures, you can hear the echo of what kuro5hin started: a place that trolls could hone their art(first kuro5hin, then husi/slashdot/gnaa, and somehow from those groups to 4chan and elsewhere where they live today) There's quite a few of us, who joined the internet 2 decades or so ago, who met like minded people in wide discussion threads, like this one, for the first time, and learned from eachother in a way that was, until then, impossible.

I was just a stupid young undergrad, and I had personal differences with one of the guys who started it. But it stood as a monument of what the internet could be: a way to actually make something of a community of the millions who were coming to be online every year. It didn't end up scaling: Long before it hit even 2 million users, people started to lose interest, and the shitpost:post ratio went up. There was some magnificent trolling to come out after things started going downhill, but serious discussion went elsewhere.

there was eventually text-based advertising which was brought in, which was, in and of itself, novel (most advertising of the time was flashy, graphics-based and increasingly hard on system resources). Its minimalistic, targeted ads were much closer to what google had, than what was common for the time -- it sustained itself for awhile that way, though hard to say how well that worked.

The NSA is building a profile on every single person, including you, "Anonymous" Coward. They very much are building a catalog of your porn tastes, and everything else about you that they can vacuum up.

> And as long as we keep keeping private stuff and do private stuff (like banking) on our mobile devices (regardless of platform)
If you do not have the source code, you cannot verify that your financial transactions is actually between you and your blockchain. Banking, or anything else, that is not done on an entirely free software stack is simply not safe, post 2013.
No one should use Google Play for anything. The Snowden documents have shown that the NSA has been able to coopt it to get users to install their malware/implants. With no way of knowing that you're been coopted.
The #1 red flag is not that it's not on google play, the #1 red flag is "no source code".

We have to keep our eye on the ball: those who would seek to take away *our* freedom start with those who can defend themselves least, and work their way to us from them, and our social connections with them.

Ray, you're one of the most forward thinking people in the world right now. You've put a lot of thought, over many years into the future of civilization, the impact of technology on individual, society and world culture, from sexuality and what it means to be part of the human endeavor to the particulars of how we might best move towards a more inclusive world.
That said, your cautious, well-informed optimism is not shared by all. In particular, there is a movement of modern-day luddites who have a vastly different view of what the future should be, what the best path for humankind is, and where we should be focusing our efforts.
After reading your "Age of Spiritual Machines", and Derrick Jensen's "Endgame", I realized that the two of you write mostly about the same subject matter -- but from vastly different perspectives. After watching many of your videos, and a live talk by Jensen I have been struck by how large the gap is in The Two Cultures involved -- from reading the material put forward by MIRI to the Club of Rome I have sought at every step to reconcile how the two of you see the world. But what I've been always dreamed of, is the two of you directly responding to the criticisms and ideals of the other directly, in a public discussion -- a kind of intellectual battle for the minds of those in vastly different ingroups, on the order of the
Bill Nye–Ken Ham debate if not orders of magnitude more important to the future of mankind.
In the years since I have gotten ahold of Derrick Jensen. And while he's not interested in a realtime debate in person, he has told me that he would be willing to debate you, if you're up for it.
So here's my question:
Would you be willing to debate Derrick Jensen on the future of humanity and civilization in a respectable way, in a public forum of some kind? And if so, under what condition?
Perhaps if the debate was moderated by someone like Nikola Danaylov?

we have 3 3d printers at our hackerspace. So far
1) Children love them. We had one little girl design her own toy, and since then kids have been in a rush to learn how to design 3d. I can only imagine what they'll do once they start encountering real needs.
2) Inventors and their prototypes, typically custom boxes. Best I've seen is some casing for sonar equipment for making cell walls perforate enough to let medicine in.
3) We've got one guy who's building a replica of the enigma machine, and has learned how to design gears and simple plastic machine parts.
The question isn't "what are you using 3d printing for" anymore. Once you've used one for a couple of months you start looking at everything around you in a completely different way. I no longer, for example, would be content to merely buy a new bicycle helmet. I'd want the STL file for it, and the materials in a way that could be printed/assembled locally.

If you cannot post something on/. due to account or subnet blacklisting, or fear of reprisal from the legal system, etc, email me and I will post it: themusigod1 at zworg.com. I reserve the reserve the right to rot13 & CC it.